Chapter 26: Reality: Recognition

Chapter 26: Reality: Knowing

In the Realm of No End, Intermediates were divided into six ranks.

Starting from the weakest, they were: Corpse, Ghost, Human, Mystic, Earth, and Heaven.

Heaven-rank was an overwhelming existence.

Not only was it beyond human power to resist, even among the Intermediates, a mere flick of a Heaven-rank Intermediate's finger could render those below Mystic rank defenseless.

Not only would their beings be utterly destroyed, leaving no chance for "resurrection" or "reincarnation," the realms they had created would also be demolished completely.

"You're saying we should just wait for death then. I can't take on this job," the young man said straightforwardly.

Chi Zihe touched the gem on his left earlobe, and the ring on his left ring finger emitted scattered light.

He pondered for a moment without rushing to persuade the youth.

"To be honest, this outcome has taken me by surprise as well. The celestial configurations indicated that Si Shuhao's third station would be at the pinnacle of a Human-level Seamless Lord's world creation. For a Heavenly-level existence to manifest, there must be some sort of anomaly at play."

Ming Yiyang didn't tease him about whether he had mistaken his position.

Chi Zihe is inept in martial arts and lacks proficiency in talisman crafting, yet he excels in one singular pursuit: the unraveling of destiny's mysteries. His studies are devoted to the arcane discipline of Qizheng Siyu, also known as the Guo Laoshi Star School, a most esoteric branch of celestial divination.

Rumors have it that this technique originated from the Tai Shi Jian of the Ming Dynasty, an institution that answered solely to the emperor. Anyone found practicing it privately would be sentenced to death, hence few historical records of it exist. It was merely a stroke of luck that Chi Zihe was able to learn it.

Regardless of the rumors, Chi Zihe's divinations had never once failed.

He predicted the weather more accurately than any meteorological agency.

When he foretold someone's misfortune, he never vaguely mentioned "bloody calamity." Instead, he specified the exact year, month, day, hour, and location where the misfortune would befall them, along with the precise manner in which it would happen.

Once he spoke, if the person did not take precautions to avoid it, they would undoubtedly suffer exactly as he had foreseen, without deviation.

This was why Ming Yiyang was willing to join his "company."

With such a boss, even though the assignments were perilous, the risk of being in dangerous situations could be significantly reduced, allowing for safer operations.

"Didn't you previously mention that Su Shuhao and I would encounter someone capable of turning the world upside down in the Realm of Endless Torment?"

With silver eyelashes slightly lowered, a faint trail of smoke escaped the young man's lips.

Indeed, his presence might have made a difference in the situation.

Chi Zihe's gossip spirit shamefully stirred.

"Good heavens, did those words actually come out of your mouth? Elaborate, please."

"However, this person is rather troublesome, likes to meddle in other people's affairs, and has a bit of a rift with me."

The young man casually set his half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the table, with the lit end facing outward.

"He's not the easy-going type. If you just make a straightforward offer, he might not take it seriously."

"What's their name? Male or female? Attractive? Do they have contact information? Let me see if I can lure them over to our company."

"No contact information available."

Ming Yiyang took out the magazine he had hidden earlier and tossed it in front of Chi Zihe, pointing at the face on the cover as he said, "It's him. His name is Yan Qiling."

Chi Zihe's excited expression instantly froze. "Ah? It's him...?"

Seeing something was off, Ming Yiyang raised his right eyebrow slightly. "You know him?"

"How could I not... You're quite lucky, kid. I was wondering why that astrology reading was so difficult; turns out your benefactor was him. No wonder."

Chi Zihe couldn't help but sigh. "Then your journey through the realms should have been rather smooth. He's very efficient – usually, when he passes through an Interworld, it collapses by the end of the cycle and never regrows."

"Collapse?"

Ming Yiyang stirred the coconut chunks in his cup with a straw, frowning.

"We nearly got crushed by wooden planks, and that Incarnation of Voids even merged with the house to chase us. If you say we narrowly escaped death, I won't argue. But as for the collapse, I didn't quite see that part."

A hint of surprise flickered across the Daoist's face, but he quickly concealed it, adopting an expression of wanting to speak but holding back.

"…Alright. But to be honest, he was indeed quite a handful."

"I know, right?"

The silver-haired young man wasn't surprised. He drained the cup in one breath and casually toyed with the empty glass:

"What's his rate in the industry?"

"It's not about the price. He doesn't take jobs; he always works on his own. But lucky for you, you've come across me as your boss!"

Chi Zihe slammed the table, his expression shifting from seriousness to a wide grin:

"I can actually help you get this favor! But don't back out at the last minute. Don't make me go through the trouble of finding him only for you not to cooperate."

"Let's talk about it later."

The young man, with a cigarette nearly burnt to the filter, held it to his lips. Recalling something, he didn't light it immediately but instead pulled it away slightly, adding,

"I have an idea."

Satisfied with the answer, the blue-clad Taoist chuckled and walked out with his phone, clearly on his way to 'collect a favor.'

The idle person, feeling listless, idly flipped the magazine back in front of them. Their handsome face became nothing more than a vague outline amidst the smoke.

Peering through the delicate cloud of smoke, he gazed at the photograph that seemed to soften the passage of time for a moment.

Suddenly, a playful smile spread across his face.

"You deliberately didn't give your contact information, huh."

But he still managed to find him.

-

The school, nestled among the embracing mountains, was like a colorful lake amidst towering peaks.

Beyond the mountains lies an endless expanse belonging to the sea of stars.

At this moment, that boundless expanse, tinged with the hue of the starry sea, was slowly encroaching inward from beyond the shattered peaks.

A dense blanket of black clouds shrouded the campus, carrying countless debris.

From afar, these swirling fragments formed a frozen, contorted staircase of fragments ascending steadily towards the sky, like souls ascending to heaven.

In reality, the section interfacing with this "stairway of fragments" was rapidly decomposing and collapsing.

Once the cracks spread across the entire space, both the mountains and the campus would crumble, leaving not a trace of dust behind.

Such ruthless and unforgiving tactics were characteristic of that person.

Gazing at this magnificent sight, the masked man let out a wheezing laugh, his voice raspy like a rusted organ:

"Where is the Master of this Netherworld here?"

The hovering gray shadow immediately prostrated itself, its tone respectful:

"Paimon, my lord, there were once two Incarnations of Eternity here. One has perished in the cycle of rebirth, and the other was just devoured by an anomaly a few minutes ago."

"Hmm, I see now."

He retrieved an old, worn pocket watch from his chest. The previously still second hand suddenly began ticking, making a full rotation.

The minute hand remained still, while the hour hand moved a single tick.

The rift instantly expanded to three times its original size! It even exerted gravitational waves that affected their existence!

With an icy touch, his bony finger rested on the second hand, the protruding knuckles bending as he wound it backward, against the direction of time.

One circle, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

A torrent of time flowed around him, and the faint gray figure, unable to withstand the force, vanished with a scream amidst the chaos. Only the man stood firm at the center of time, unshaken.

The second hand jammed, unable to be moved further.

The masked man released his grip.

The devouring from the Starry Sea vanished, and the campus returned to its original state, yet it seemed not entirely so.

Frozen images replayed across the school grounds as if broken.

Like stuttering or frozen video footage, they jumped disjointedly from one location to another, unable to display their entirety, nor convey a complete sound.

The masked man couldn't glean the information he sought from these images.

At the same time, he realized something.

That person seemed to have been prepared. Upon entering this space, they had skillfully disrupted the "past" and "future" of this world.

Even if he made everything playback, he would never find any clues left behind by that individual.

"Ho-ho-ho..."

A raspy laughter carried a genuine-seeming sense of delight.

The man asked into the empty space,

"What about other leads?"

The ashen shadow reappeared once more.

It appeared no different from the shattered shadow before:

"Lord Paimon, we've found a unique survivor. He's been alive here for five cycles, but his mind is utterly shattered. There's no way for him to leave this place and go elsewhere."

The man seemed to have heard something intriguing, his tone brimming with anticipation akin to unwrapping a gift:

"Bring him here. I'll make him whole again."

After the ashen shadow flickered, a red-haired young man, seemingly drunk, materialized in the space.

The youth's face was marred with scars, his original appearance obscured by blood and wounds.

Yet, his eyes shone unusually bright, holding onto some unyielding belief.

"So hungry... So hungry..."

The moment the young man managed to stand, he crumpled to the ground, his deformed right leg unable to support him.

His fractured left hand was bleeding profusely as he repeatedly murmured, "So hungry, so hungry..."

Snap, snap.

The masked man's pale, slender fingers extended abnormally amidst the dislocated bones, growing longer.

Ink-like color spread from his fingertips, eventually forming a hand with sharp spines that glowed perilously blue at their tips.

This hand consisted of only three spines, with the blue-tinted fingertips radiating the luster of a nebula.

They were not rigid; they curled gently into the young man's mind, penetrating slowly, like a treacherous tapeworm adept at nesting in human brains.

As they delved deeper, the young man's voice gradually faded.

A torrent of memories flooded in.

Surprisingly, the memories were chaotic, as if they belonged to several individuals and had overflowed fiercely due to their sheer volume, reverberating back through the spikes in a mad frenzy!

The masked man's sigh held an inexplicable chill:

"So it was a trap."

Instead of retreating, the once pliant claws instantly hardened with unparalleled strength!

They swiftly tightened, utterly crushing the young man's brain.

Yet, what oozed from the crushed skull wasn't blood; it was masses of flesh that flowed like paste across the ground, then wriggled in an attempt to reassemble.

The masked man seemed to have noticed something.

He crouched down, personally pulling a corner of a blood-soaked fabric from the mashed remains.

He pulled the fabric slowly.

It was a well-preserved silk handkerchief.

Despite that, it was now tattered and unrecognizable.

The man took out the pocket watch, patiently waited for the second hand to complete a full circle, then reset it once more.

The pile of flesh before him transformed into an insignificant, intermittent apparition, but the handkerchief had returned to its original state.

The moon-white handkerchief was stained with dust from an unknown source. The man seemed to detect a scent of perfume, and he placed the cloth over the steel mask, deeply inhaling the pungent air.

"Yes, it's him... He's back. Hah... Hah hah..."

A manic, neurotic laughter echoed throughout the world on the brink of being devoured. The stable surroundings began to crumble under the escalating, bizarre emotions of this individual.

The restored scene collapsed in an instant.

The chasm of starry hues expanded unprecedentedly, engulfing nearly half of the campus and mountains. The imbalance of power grew, and the rate of destruction accelerated!

"Lord Paimon, this place is about to collapse."

The grayish-white shadow narrowly escaped the gravitational pull, its body uncontrollably floating upward.

"No worries, no worries at all."

The masked man paid no attention to the creature's words but instead held the torn handkerchief close and murmured softly,

"This place is of no use now, but this trace of aura will suffice..."

He pointed the three spikes at himself and calmly pierced them into his temple! His concealed face behind the mask couldn't express any emotion, but the genuine pleasure he felt was undeniable as it radiated outward.

Slowly, he extracted a wisp of ethereal blue, resembling smoke, from his temple and tossed it towards the ashen shadow.

"Let your master track down the source based on this aura. The moment that person appears, report immediately."

Gazing at the rapidly expanding fissure, he retracted the spikes from his fingertips and stuffed the handkerchief into the gap beneath his mask.

As he chewed on it, facing the widening rift, he stared into the vast expanse like a starry abyss. His soiled cotton shirt fluttered in the wind, and his askew scarf billowed behind him.

He said,

"Sweety, I can hardly wait to meet you..."